


The Bone Lock

by Pitseleh



Category: Bone Key - Sarah Monette
Genre: Backstory, Ghosts, Light Horror, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/pseuds/Pitseleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thekla runs away from home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bone Lock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pandora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandora/gifts).



> For the prompt, some worldbuilding with a focus on female characters. I've always wondered about Thekla, personally, so here's my attempt. I hope you enjoy; happy Yuletide.

Thekla hears voices from a very young age, young enough that she does not blame madness when the suggestion reaches her. They are not _her_ voices, she reasons (silently, of course), but the voices of the dead.

She is smarter than Mavis, about this. For one, she does not _tell_. And she does not think the voices-- the _spirits_ \-- make her special. As a Murchison, they only make her slightly more burdened than she would have been otherwise.

And slightly more likely to go mad. They beg her constantly for any number of things, chief among them the bone lock.

Mavis gives in. Her will has never been too strong without the iron backing of suggestion: the spirits tell her she is right, and she believes them, for the whispered insults of their displeasure are too much for her fragile conscience to bear.

Thekla thinks of her parents. She can bear insults from the dead. Insults are nothing, compared with blows.

When Thekla is old enough to realize the extent of her position in life, her hair turns white, and her father sits her down to explain her fate.

"I will not marry Cousin Luther," Thekla says, because she will not.

"Then whoever you _do_ marry will die," her father responds.

In Thekla's ear, a spirit so old it no longer remembers its name whispers of the bone lock, and its restorative powers. Thekla smiles.

Her father stands, then, having never possessed any patience for conversation once the point has been made, and walks off. Thekla is left alone to ponder her options. She stares at the key her father keeps on the mantle.

The next summer, when the roads are clear of snow, she runs away.

Grimbold is a man she meets at the end of her journey, the middle of which she is not willing to disclose. But at the end of it, a great kindness is paid her, and she is grateful until just before she dies.

This is not according to her plan, and she says as much, because love and truth are the necessary contrasts to her past, full of secrets and cruelty.

Grimbold frowns, but even his frown is beautiful. "You did not mean to fall in love? Not with me, perhaps, but-- ever?"

This is the first time 'love' has ever been spoken aloud between them. It has been implied, certainly, but never said outright. Thekla swells with pride and pleasure. She moves closer to Grimbold on the bed, and he wraps his arms around her.

But she must answer. Love is truth. "No, I hoped I never would. This undoes all my planning."

"The Bone Lock?" Grimbold says, always checking to make sure, never hasty.

"Yes." She kisses him lightly. "If I love you, it will be so much more terribly difficult to make."

"Will it be difficult to make, then?" He asks.

"Oh, yes." Strangely, she thinks her voice sounds almost happy.

Things progress where they must, and some weeks later Thekla finds herself in need of a marriage. Always accommodating, Grimbold complies, and their child is born soon after.

"What sort of a name is _Kyle_?" Grimbold says, but he is laughing and holding his son very close.

"Your brother's wife was very kind to me. I thought we might name him after her, but he was a boy, and..." Thekla trails off, hoping Grimbold with understand.

He does. "Her maiden name. Very neat." He kisses the top of Kyle's head. "You realize this makes his name a veritable string of surnames."

"I want him to be connected to his past." The spirits in Thekla's ear whisper her son's fate, to live without the curse, if only she can make the bone lock. Strangely, she finds herself troubled by the idea of Kyle living so rudderless. But it is in his best interest, so he may marry without fear.

So, by night, Thekla sets Kyle aside and studies her books, and crafts tumblers and latches from the bones of pigs. She thinks it a good compromise. And, when the spirits disagree-- they have been argumentative since Kyle was born, and she feels strangely abandoned-- she begins using the bones of the dead.

The spirits want the bones of the living. The spirits want the bones of her daughter.

"I do not _have_ a daughter," Thekla says, and she is answered by a thousand chanting voices: _make one_.

For the rest of her life, Thekla watches the calendar very closely. She never has another child. As she ages, she understands Mavis (poor, poor Mavis) more and more. The spirits are so damnably hard to refuse.

When Grimbold is in his death bed, the bone lock is completed, and Thekla stands before him and chants her old dead words and brings lock and key together. Grimbold's eyes, rheumy and devoid of the spark Thekla had once loved, look up at her in question.

"It's not enough," she says. She realizes belatedly that she is crying, that she has been crying for some time. The spirits told her Grimbold would die tonight. She thought she would prove them wrong.

Grimbold says nothing. He's not strong enough to, and if he does not recover, he never will be again. Thekla realizes that if she does not save him tonight, his last words will be _my dear, bring me the piss pot_.

"I'm sorry," she says, and curls up on the bed beside him. After a few minutes, she hears his voice in his ear, forgiving her.

This is the greatest cruelty.

In her pride, she had not planned for this moment, if she were to fail. She does not know how she will support Kyle, now-- but then she hears it.

 _Make the bone from your daughter's bones_.

Each voice is Grimbold's.

On the stairs, she sees little Kyle. He is sitting quietly against the wall, and for a moment, she wonders if his bones would be enough to quiet the spirits. As if they can read her thoughts now-- which they never could before-- they answer again, a thousand voices, all Grimbold's: _yes_.

She strides past Kyle and walks into the guest room. She locks the door behind her, and unlocks the window in front of her.

_Thekla, make it with his bones._

When the ground meets her, it is a mercy.


End file.
